LINDLEY-FRENCH'S BLOG BLAST: SPEAKING TRUTH UNTO POWER

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hms iron duke

Monday, 2 March 2015

Alphen, Netherlands. 2
March. What does the murder of Boris Nemtsov’s murder mean for Russia and
Europe’s security? A few years ago I met Nemtsov at an event in Geneva. Unfailingly courteous, even self-deprecating,
he was highly-intelligent and offered a fascinating glimpse into a better
Russia, a different Russia. Indeed, my
impressions of the man and his ideas suggested that his great country still had
a real chance of transitioning from autocracy to democracy, and through that transition,
Europe could finally become whole, free, and at peace.

Sadly, all that Nemtsov
stood for was blown away on Friday by four bullets in his back - the cynical
act of that other, all-too cynical Russia.
Many are blaming President Putin.
However, this is simply not his style, and is in any case far too close
to home. Why murder a leading opposition
figure on the approach road to the Kremlin?
It is pure speculation on my part but it is more likely to have been the
deed of the now-multiple ultra-nationalist groups that stalk Russian politics. Well to the right of even President Putin such
groups have tentacles that reach far into the so-called Siloviki, the security apparatchiks who run an increasingly
powerful security state.

The other day I had
dinner with Putin opponent Mikhail Khordokovsky, Lithuanian Foreign Minister
Linus Linkevicius, Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak, former Swedish Prime
and Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, and NATO Deputy Secretary-General Alexander
Vershbow. Now, I am not at liberty to reveal the content of our discussion (and
I will not). However, I was struck by
Khordokovsky’s concern for and about his Motherland. Indeed, having listened to Khordokovsky I
tore up my prepared remarks and put it bluntly to the gathered dignitaries; Europe’s
strategic vacation is over, all the comforting self-absorbed assumptions about peace,
stability and security we Europeans have clung to since the end of the Cold War
will be torn up over the next decade…and Russia will do much of the tearing.

You might say my motivation
was fairly obvious given the tragedy in Ukraine. However, I was also driven to speak by the
unworldliness of Western European politicians in particular. Too many of them seem to believe that what is
happening TO Russia, and what is happening IN Ukraine, is unfortunate, but remains
a side-show to the ‘real’ issues of debt and ‘Europe-building’. In fact, what is happening in Russia is
extremely dangerous and concerns us all.
This weekend here in the Netherlands Gary Kasparov, the former Russian
chess master, said that President Putin regards the West as weak and divided.
He is of course right. However, what is
not understood is just how weak and divided Russia is itself, and just how
dangerous such divisions are for Europe’s security.

When he started his
third term in office in 2012 President Putin set out to fulfil three parallel and
connected strategic missions: to centralise power on the President’s office via
the National Security Council; to marginalise all opposition to his rule; and
to re-establish Russian influence over the states on Russia’s so-called ‘near
abroad’, be they EU/NATO members or not.
Most commentators have assumed that the primary mission is the
re-establishment of Russia’s influence over its ‘near abroad’. In fact, President Putin is using that
mission, and the appeal to nostalgic Russian patriotism it generates, to
justify absolute control over the sprawling Russian state apparatus and, by
extension, Russian society. To President
Putin the need for a stable Russia on his terms is far more important than a
free Russia on our terms.

It is in that context
that Nemtsov and his supporters have been portrayed as a threat to the Kremlin,
because Nemtsov espoused the kind of European civil society which would see a
Russia emerge that would indeed be on our liberal democratic terms. It should be noted that in Ukraine Maidan was
triggered by an EU agreement, not a NATO agreement.

However, for all his
concerns about Nemtsov and his ilk he is equally concerned about forces to his
political right and the ultra-nationalist movements which could tear Russia apart,
and by extension Europe, if they ever gained power. Not versed in political reform as other
Europeans would know it Putin sees the greatest danger to Russia as the ‘chaos’
that would emerge if a power struggle were to break out into the open between
liberals and ultra-nationalists. In that
light Putin sees the focusing of power on himself as a move to stabilise Russia
and thus prevent Russian fracturing under the triple pressures of nationalism, globalisation
and Europeanisation.

Therefore, Nemtsov’s assassination
is clearly a function of the very profound tensions that exist at the heart of
Russian politics and society, and such tensions are likely to get worse. President
Putin has manoeuvred himself into a political dead-end. He offers Russians no political vision, no
political development, and no political evolution which would over time help
ease such tensions and create a Russia with state institutions of sufficient
strength to cope with pluralism. Rather,
he is trying to divert such tensions by appealing to Russian nationalism,
wrapping himself in the Russian flag, and by centralising all power on himself
and using an assertive displacement policy. Consequently, Putin himself has nowhere to go
but more of the same assertive displacement policy. If he fails Putin will be swept aside by the
tides of change that are indeed boiling away below the surface of the Russian
body politic. Putin’s ‘strategy’ may
not make sense to many strategically-illiterate western European politicians. However, it makes ‘perfect’ Russian sense to the
Baltic states, and indeed all states across Central and Eastern Europe who have
‘benefitted’ from past Russian rule.

Contrast all of the
above with the utterances of last week of British Prime Minister David Cameron. Amidst growing and justified concerns about
further cuts to British defence spending (and blatant attempts by Downing
Street to shut down any defence debate prior to the May general election)
Cameron assured the British people that the UK can defend itself against the
Russians. That is precisely NOT the
point, Dave, and you know it. The real
issue is whether the British armed forces will be able to fulfil their treaty
commitments to NATO and provide critical forward deterrence to Britain’s
allies. Today, the answer is just about yes. Any more defence cuts to the British
defence budget and the answer will be an emphatic no as Britain effectively ceases
to be a major power (see my new paperback – Little Britain? Twenty-First
Century Strategy for a Middling European Power.
www.amazon.com)

Here’s the strategic
cruncher. President Putin is looking at NATO anchor-states such as Britain to
see if they have the resolve to contain him.
Indeed, if I want to be really provocative (and why not) I would suggest
that in the absence of any meaningful strategic partnership Putin NEEDS the
West to contain him so he can concentrate on consolidating power in Russia, and
in his very narrow terms maintain political stability therein. However, as Gary Kasparov pointed out, Putin
certainly does not believe countries like Britain, or indeed any other European
state, are up to the strategic task he has set them. Sadly, I have to agree with President Putin.

So, will the murder of
Boris Nemtsov be seen one day as Putin’s nemesis? No.
However, it reveals a Russia that combines immense, over-centralised
power with dangerous instability. And, if what is happening in and to Russia is
not seen through the cold light of political realism Putin’s Russia could one
day be the nemesis of us all.

Friday, 27 February 2015

Alphen, Netherlands. 27
February. The purpose of this blog is hard analysis. That means I must
regularly foray into areas of policy and consequence that Establishments would
prefer remained cloaked in official secrecy, often to hide the mess politicians
have made. Nowhere is this more apparent
than in the relationship between immigration, societal cohesion and security. For too long the British Government has stuck
its head in the sand and pretended that no such relationship exists. Indeed, I witnessed myself the bizarre spectacle
of British troops fighting in Afghanistan to keep Islamism at ‘strategic
distance’, even as an 80% surge took place in immigration to Britain over the
same 2001-2014 period from some of the most conservative parts of the Islamic
world. This disconnect between immigration policy and security policy has led
to a profound loss of balance in British policy and strategy, most notably in
the balance of investments made in to protect society and project British
influence and power. The Foreign and
Commonwealth Office and the Armed Forces have been starved of resources to fund
the domestic intelligence and counter-terrorism efforts. The result is the most unbalanced British foreign
and security policy ever, and an accelerated and exaggerated British retreat
from influence. Three events this week
highlight the extent to which immigration ‘policy’ is in various ways
distorting British security policy – the unmasking of ‘Jihadi John’, the latest
immigration figures, and a poll of British Muslims.

The revelation that
so-called Jihadi John is in fact a British Muslim called Mohammed Emwazi highlights
the dark side of immigration. Born in
Kuwait in 1988 he came to Britain aged six and seems to have been radicalised
by an Islamist group in West London. His
profile is similar to that of a lot of British jihadis, a first-generation
immigrant from a difficult region who seems to have had difficulty identifying
with the norms and values of British liberal society. Such immigrants in many ways import the
challenges of their home region into their adopted country, as evidenced by the
worrying growth in anti-Semitism in Britain, which the left-leaning BBC, for
example, refuses to identify as a problem that is almost overwhelmingly associated
with British Muslims.

The second ‘event’ is
the release of the latest immigration figures for the year up to February
2015. Net migration last year was
289,000, the highest figure for over a decade.
Indeed, some 654,000 people moved to Britain from both within the EU,
and from without the EU over the last year.
In other words, a city the size of Manchester came to the UK over the
past year. Now, the massive bulk of that
immigration is a good thing as many are students and most come to take up jobs. Indeed, 62% of all immigrants to London have a
degree, and given that Britain is Europe’s most globalised economy such
immigration is vital for the economy.

However, such mass-immigration
also has profound security implications which government must confront and too
often does not. Rather, the political
class seems to have given up on the need for secure immigration. Last night on the BBC senior figures from the
three leading political parties all shifted from the need to ensure secure
immigration to espousing the benefits of mass-immigration come –who-may. This political shift away from secure
immigration is evident in the current election campaign, which is perhaps the
strangest on record. Indeed, whilst the
public want to talk about immigration mainstream politicians do not and in alliance
with liberal media have in effect shut the debate down. The man who currently runs Britain, Cameron’s
Australian campaign manager Lynton Crosby, even forbade any senior Conservative
from yesterday defending what is by any standards an appalling failure of
government policy. Yes, immigration
certainly helps the British economy grow, but the greatest threat to British
security, and indeed societal cohesion, is also a function of mass immigration.

However, a third event
this week put the whole issue of immigration, society and security in
perspective. A poll of 1000 British
Muslims conducted by ComRes found that 95% of British Muslims polled felt
loyalty to Britain, something I have seen first-hand when dealing with British
Muslim Servicemen. And, 93% of British
Muslims polled believe Muslims should obey British laws. These figures really challenge those in
society who believe the problem is Islam per se.

However, 46% believed
Muslims were prejudiced against in Britain, and 78% were offended by published
images of the Prophet (which is why out of respect I refused to re-tweet such
an image in the immediate aftermath of the Paris attacks). Moreover, 11% of those polled felt sympathy
for those who want to fight against Western interests, 32% were not surprised
by the Paris attacks, whilst 27% had some sympathy for the motives behind the
Paris attacks, and 20% believed Islam and Western liberal society would never
be compatible.

The number of Muslims
living in Britain is some 3 million and growing. Therefore, in February 2015 some 330,000 British
Muslims felt some sympathy for those who want to fight against Western
interests, 960,000 were not surprised by the Paris attacks, 600,000 believe
Islam would never be compatible with Western liberal society, and 810,000
British Muslims felt some sympathy for the Paris attacks. By any standards this
is a significant cohort of society that is in some way fundamentally at odds
with the rest of society.Indeed, if one
assumes (for the sake of argument) that, of those 330,000 who felt some
sympathy with the Paris attacks, 5% are actively engaged in promoting extremism
some 16500 British people are actively plotting to attack fellow Britons and
the British state.

What are the policy
implications? First, there is no point
in nostalgia. Like many Britons I am
horrified that politicians have allowed this situation to develop. However, the
focus must now be on long-term policies that promote integration, instead of
the disastrous multiculturalism which simply generated mutually-uncomprehending
ghettos. Second, respect and tolerance
are vital weapons in this struggle.
Respect must be shown to Islam, which is now an integral part of British
society, and tolerance shown to all those British Muslims who practice their
faith within the framework of British laws.
Third, all forms of fundamentalism must be rooted out and exposed, as
must the racism and hatred it seems to generate in a not-inconsiderable-part of
the non-Muslim community. Fourth,
government needs to get its own house in order.
Too often politically-correct junior officials have thwarted attempts to
block extremists and their efforts to radicalise young, vulnerable people. For example, none of the sixteen recommendations
made by a leading counter-terror expert to combat extremism in Birmingham schools
has been implemented. Fifth,
counter-terrorism must not de-stabilise British foreign and security
policy. Britain can only exert its
rightful influence as the world’s fifth largest economy and fifth most powerful
defence actor across the strategic landscape with balanced policy, strategy and
structure, and that is clearly not the case today. Finally, British politicians must
once-and-for-all confront the relationship that clearly exists between
immigration policy and security policy and not simply run away from it as being
politically inconvenient, and/or too difficult.

Yes, Britain will and
must change, but if such change is dangerous and goes unchecked sooner or later
it will tear the country apart.
Therefore, it is vital that those who come to live in Britain share at
least the core values of a Western liberal democracy. Those that do not must not come, and ensuring
that is an issue of sound government policy and practice. The alternative is a British society that
becomes a dangerous incubator of terror, led by wishful-thinking politicians, which
is a threat not just to itself, but to others. The British people, non-Muslim
and Muslim, have a right to expect more than that from their leaders.

Wednesday, 25 February 2015

Alphen,
Netherlands. 24 February. Let me state for the record; Britain will not leave
the EU. Prime Minister David Cameron is
utterly in the pocket of big business, which would happily scrap democracy and
Britain for no-tariff pan-European trade.
Labour leader Ed Milliband (pronounced me-ee-bon) is in fact a Belgian
Socialist, and like all Belgian Socialists he would happily scrap Britain to
create a European super-state, he simply dare not say so. Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg
(pronounced clog) is actually a Dutch liberal (and a Euro-federalist to boot). The Americans think Britain’s only purpose is
to do their bidding in the EU - the Special Relationship. The Germans believe that one day the British
will awake to find the Germans were right, all along, about everything, and need
to be protected from themselves. The French
desperately want the British in the EU to balance Germany, but only if Britain accepts
the French view of ‘Europe’. Therefore,
those that think a) there will be a Brexit referendum; and b) (if it happens)
it will be anything but rigged, are a) totally naïve; and b) fail to understand
the nature of power in the EU and the elite relationships that hold the
Onion together, and how little democracy actually matters.

Yesterday,
the Norwegian Europe Minister (who he?), a certain Mr Vidar Helgesen, told the
British people not to leave the EU. He
made his intervention into British domestic politics at the
euphemistically-named think-tank “British Influence”. Led by Lord ‘I-actually-mean-the-opposite-of-everything-I-say-in-public’
(and former European Commissioner) Mandelson, ‘British Influence’ routinely
leaves out the key word in its title which should read “Scrap British
Influence”. By the way, Mr Helgesen said
he did not want to enter the Brexit debate.
Sorry, Mr Helgesen, but by speaking at “Scrap British Influence” you not
only entered the Brexit debate, you dove in at the deep-end wearing lead-lined
Norwegian divers boots.

Mr Helgesen
seemed to be warning the Brits not to suffer the same ‘marginalisation’ Norway
has suffered by being outside the EU. Mr
Helgesen clearly does not understand power and why the relationship between the
EU and a non-EU UK would be different from the relationship between the EU and
non-EU Norway. Let me enlighten him. Norway,
population 5m, has the world’s 50th largest economy. Britain, population 65m, according to CEBR (a
think-tank) overtook France in December to once again become the world’s 5th
largest economy. Now, I spend quite a
lot of time in oil-rich Norway and it never strikes me as a country that is
suffering too much from being outside the EU.
Far from it!

Mandelson’s
tactic is to line-up a range of foreign pro-EU speakers to present ‘facts’ that
demonstrate to the British people that a Brexit would mean the end of British
influence, Britain itself, the National Health Service, and even Sheffield
United Football Club, but not the House of Lords which goes on forever albeit
for no apparent reason. He also rather
conveniently fails to point out that the incompetent and
strategically-illiterate British elite have already done a pretty good job at
ending British influence even without the ‘help’ of the EU. Critically, Mandelson offers nothing positive
about the EU or Britain’s place in it.
He simply peddles fear.

Mandelson
is not alone in peddling such scare tactics. Nick Clog routinely suggests that Britain
would lose 3m jobs and 50% of its exports if it left the EU. He achieves these staggering figures by
counting up every single UK job that is somehow engaged in exporting to the rest
of the EU, and then suggests a Brexit would destroy all of them. As for 50% of British trade evaporating
courtesy of a Brexit, only 44% of Britain’s trade actually goes through the
rest of the EU, and of that figure 8% is actually trade re-exported via
Rotterdam to the rest of the world. Moreover, Britain suffers from a massive
trade deficit with the rest of the EU.
In other words, the real trade figure is 36%, and the rest of the EU
does far better out of Britain, than Britain does out of the EU.

Sadly, we
can all expect more of this nonsense, and not just from the “Scrap British
Influence” brigade. The
Brit-Kommentariat routinely blame Brussels for Britain’s many ills when it has
nothing to do with the EU. There is no question that should the British get a
referendum, and then actually vote to leave, some level of punitive action
would be taken against the British by the EU “pour encourager les autres”. So Nige, no broad sunlit uplands for
you mate!

However,
the saddest part of the appalling Brexit debate is the now ritualistic
Brit-bashing that occurs daily across the Euro-Kommentariat, and the role
played therein by British apologists. European Geostrategy (a good thing) this
week published a piece by Nick Witney in which he said, “The British are
trapped in a crisis of post-imperial national identity and show no signs of emerging
soon”. What complete and utter
tosh. Most Brits do not even know about
the Empire (poor education and no knowledge of history before Princess Diana),
and even fewer can remember it (it was a long time ago, Nick). There is a lot
Nick writes with which I agree, but not this. Such statements are symptomatic
of the lazy, intellectual rubbish (sorry, Nick) that the Euro-Kommentariat
routinely spawns about Britain.

For most
Brits the EU on offer is not the EU they want – plain and simple. It is not because we are supposedly (and
aimlessly) wandering around dreaming great dreams of Kipling, Rorke’s Drift and
the Raj. For the record, I do not like
the EU for which I once worked because it does not listen to me, it does not
work, is made for others by others, makes ‘Europe’ weaker than the sum of its
parts, and I am expected to pay a lot for it. Get it?

However, my
principled objection to the EU, which I share with many Brits born of the
tradition of John Locke, concerns the relationship between power and the individual
in Europe. Like many Brits I am a pro-European, EU-skeptic. Yes, I believe in European co-operation but what
worries me about the EU is that Brussels is fast becoming the complete opposite
of Abraham Lincoln’s aphorism about democracy.
It is government above the people, imposed on the people, and most
clearly not for the people and looks ever more like a corruption of another Lincoln
aphorism; you can fool some of the people some of the time, but if you really
make democracy irrelevant and power far enough distant, you can fool all of the
people all of the time…or at least ignore them. The European Parliament? Forget
it. The ‘EP’ is a rubber-stamping chamber designed to provide fig-leaf
legitimacy for over-bearing power which has little to no legitimacy with
citizens. Look how Jean-Claude Juncker
stole last year’s election results to claim a legitimacy that he simply does not possess.

In other
words, in the year in which the anniversaries of both Magna Carta and the
founding of the Mother of Parliaments are being celebrated, the EU makes me
wonder why my British forebears fought for so long for freedom if my leaders
are simply going to give said freedom away to a distant bureaucracy in which my
country is blatantly under-represented, and/or a Berlin (or a complex mix of
the two) that still too often confuses the words ‘Germany’ and ‘Europe’. Yes, I admit it is better than giving away freedom
to Moscow. However, I am sure Comrade Vlad could arrange that as well if the EU
makes Europe any weaker than it already is.
This is not the EU in which I once believed.

Furthermore,
far from preparing Europeans for a globalised world, the EU is fast becoming
one gigantic protectionist racket which champions ‘Europeanisation’ as the denial
of globalisation. Take the proposed Energy Union which is being rolled
out by the European Commission today. On
the face of it such a Union makes sense.
The Commission (as ever) claims it would boost consumer choice
transnationally, generate pan-European energy infrastructure investment, and
integrate energy supply systems on an EU-wide basis. In fact, the Energy Union
is yet another opportunistic power-grab by the federalist Commission seizing on
international friction to further extend its unaccountable power at the expense
of national energy regulators, and by extension the legitimate European
nation-state. For Britain, Europe’s most
open and international economy (see the OECD report on Britain of
yesterday), an Energy Union would mean yet more regulation, more protectionism
and yet another raft of national public policy that Parliament is no longer
permitted to oversee because it is ‘European Regulation’. Do such concerns make me opposed to intense
European co-operation? No, of course
not! Do I have the right to express such concerns as a citizen? It is my duty.

The new
paperback edition of my book Little Britain (www.amazon.co.uk) poses the real question at the heart of the Brexit debate; how
best to use the not inconsiderable power Britain still possesses in the
twenty-first century world and, indeed, Europe. Simply allowing British power to vanish into
the mutual impoverishment pact the contemporary EU has become is in no-one’s
interest, least of all the British. As
for the idea that the EU magnifies Britain’s place on the world stage I think The Economist for once got it right when
it said recently, “European power diminished by two world wars, has disappeared
down the rabbit-hole of European integration”.

Britain
SHOULD stay in the EU but only if there is a new political settlement that once
and for all ends the drift towards EU federalism, and properly establishes a
proper balance of powers and competences between the EU and its
member-states. For most thinking Brits
that means an EU that is more super-alliance than super-state. Unfortunately, strategically-challenged Dave
has told his EU chums that if they do not like that idea, and even if he does
in fact honour his pledge to hold a referendum, he will campaign to stay in an
unreformed EU. Brilliant Dave! The country is clearly safe in your hands. Now, why not tell Vlad the Improper that if
he goes on sending his nasty bombers over Britain you will scrap the British
armed forces? Oh, you already have.
British influence?

In fact, my
big fear is that the Brexit referendum does indeed takes place, Britons
actually vote to stay in the EU, but do so through fear rather than conviction and thus go on pretending the EU is a ‘foreign’ imposition. Should a ‘yes’ vote ever happen the Brits
would have to finally and fully engage in the European Project (i.e. the
creation of a European super-state) and rule from Brussels. Why? There
is an old Italian joke that goes something like this. Every day an old Roman goes to pray at the
statue of one of the Apostles. Day after
day he cites the same prayer, “Please, Lord, let me win the lottery”. After several years of this the statue
eventually becomes so irritated he comes to life and in exasperation says to
the old man, “Ok, Luigi, but please, for once, buy a lottery ticket!”

The issues thinking
British EU-scepticism raises go to the very heart of freedom, justice and
representation in twenty-first century Europe and for the sake of Europeans
cannot and must not be dismissed as the post-imperial bleatings of a few Little Englanders. As for Mr Helgesen,
just give your oil money to Syriza if its makes you feel better...and more 'European'.

Monday, 23 February 2015

Alphen, Netherlands. 23 February. After a short hiatus caused by the techno-prattery of your blogonaut the DEFINITIVE edition of my first self-published paperback (218 pages and very reasonably-priced) Little Britain? Twenty-First Century Strategy for a Middling European Power is available at www.amazon.co.uk. There may still be the odd typo in the book because I have edited the book myself and of course do not have the same support I normally get from Oxford University Press and Routledge. However, I have now been through the manuscript so many times I could just about recount the whole book backwards. My thanks to my old friend Chris Hayes for pointing out the glitches in the last version.

Little Britain is blunt in its analysis, but positive in the solutions it proposes. The book is essential reading for all those with an interest in British, European defence and the transatlantic relationship.

The Analysis

London's High Establishment - both political and bureaucratic - no longer link defence expenditure with Britain's rapidly-deteroriating strategic environment. Rather, riven through with an ethos of exaggerated decline management London's High Establishment is engaged in the appeasment of reality and views defence as a luxury item the budget of which is continually raided to fund health, welfare, education, and other politically-expedient provisions. Today, London recognises only as much threat as it thinks it can afford and by so doing dangerously undermines not just the defence of the realm, but Britain's wider influence. Critically, the transatlantic relationship, NATO and European defence are also being damaged by London's defence-strategic myopia which will make the coming shock all the more dangerous. Ironically, Britain is still a major power that behaves ever more like a small one, bereft of leadership, statecraft or strategic direction.

Londonhas abandoned firm strategic principles for a form of strategic political correctness as short-term politics routinely trumps long-held strategic principles. This retreat from strategic judgement has been reinforced by an obsession with austerity and cutting the deficit at whatever cost to foreign and defence policy, a lack of social cohesion, as well as uncertainty about US leadership, the future of the EU, and Britain’s place therein. However, the main cause of Britain's precipitous decline is a timid, divided, strategically-illiterate political class no longer committed to any level of strategic ambition,or a Britain able to play a serious role in the world.Consequently, Britain today punches beneath, not above, its weight in the world, as evidenced by London's silence during the 2015 Ukraine crisis. Add to that decline-laden mix a Whitehall bureaucracy that has become increasingly politicised, and which lacks all-important strategic unity of effort and purpose, and the reasons for decline become all to clear. The politicisation of London’s High Establishment is evident in the ideological struggle between hard and soft power, and the consequent loss of all-important balance between the two, as London retreats ever deeper into political spin to mask actual weakness.Unless London’s High Establishmentface the world as it is, and not as they would like it to be, 2015 could mark the true end of Britain as a world power after some four hundred years. And, Europe and the wider world would be very much more dangerous place for Britain's self-imposed retreat

The Solutions

Britain is not fated to decline as Britain remains one of the world’s top five economies and one of its leading military powers.Indeed,Little Britain 2015 rejects defeatism and argues that it is not too late for Britain to regain its strategic poise and place. To do that the book considers the 2015 National Security Strategy and the Strategic Defence and Security Review in the round, and takes a positive view of the role Britain could play in the contemporary world if only the High Establishment could escape from the habit of decline management.

Little Britain 2015 offers a series of solutions to take Britain out of its strategic malaise. First, Britain needs a National Security Strategy that properly assesses Britain’s place in the world, what is needed to defend and protect Britain’s critical national interests, and exert influence over the grand alliances critical to the British way of strategy. Second, the book calls on the National Security Council to be much strengthened so that it can help properly forge a real whole-of-government approach to national strategy and security, and thus ensure balance between the protection of society and the projection of British power and influence. Third, Britain must create a radical future British military force powerful and agile enough to support the US and act as a high-end core within NATO and the EU that is configured to lead and support coalitions of allies and partners the world over.

This is not just a book about Britain; it is about the choices all democracies must make as Russia and Islamic State bring the strategic foreplay of the twenty-first century to a shattering end. Strategic engagement or strategic pretence? That is the choice Britain faces. If it is the latter then Britain, Europe and the wider West will become victims of change, rather than the masters of it. Now is the time to act!

Friday, 20 February 2015

Alphen, Netherlands. 20
February. Aeschylus in Agamemnon says, “It is in the character of very few men
to honour without envy a friend who has prospered”. In Greek tragedy the Chorus
acts as a running commentary on the drama, often revealing to the audience the
secrets and sub-plots that the characters dare not reveal. As Greece and
Germany bring the Euro to the hour of its reckoning there are many sub-plots
that prevent a clear-eyed solution to this crisis. And yet one solution is obvious; the EU and
its benighted Single Currency needs a new mechanism to enable member-states to move
between Single Market membership and Single Currency membership. So, why is common
sense not prevailing?

Germany is the real
problem. The Germans have taken a lot of
flak (excuse the historical pun) of late for appearing to treat Greece like
some form of colony. Certainly, the
Greeks have at times made utterly unacceptable and insulting comparisons
between contemporary Germany and Nazi Germany.
For a Single Currency to function there must be a disciplining agent – a
Leviathan. In the absence of a European
super-state it has fallen on Germany to be just such an enforcer.

However, Germany itself
is deeply conflicted over Greece and the Euro.
On one hand Germany wants Greece to stay in the Euro because the Single Currency
is German ideology. Having spent a lot
of time this past year talking to senior Germans about the Eurozone crisis I
know how deeply they feel about the Euro and how hurt they are to be accused of
building a new German Empire. And yet,
there are clear elements in contemporary German thinking that see the Euro, and
by extension the EU, as a mechanism for ensuring the German writ runs across
Europe.

For all that Germany is
simply not prepared to pay the price of its own ‘European’ ideology. Syriza is right; there is no chance Greece
can ever pay back the €200bn the Greeks owe creditors. And yet Berlin insists theologically that all
Greek debt be repaid. The reason for
this contradiction is the disconnect between German ideology and German politics.
The cost implications for the German
taxpayer of giving the Greeks debt relief, or even another debt holiday, would
be enormous and quite possibly ruinous. As
a Dutch taxpayer I am all-too-aware that whatever happens this next week I am
again going to get screwed by this crisis.
Sadly, no-one in Berlin apparently wants to tell the Germans.

Implicit in the
German-Greek stand-off (for that is what it is is a fundamental question; to
mutualise debt or not to mutualise debt.
If a deal is done for Greece why not make the German (and Dutch)
taxpayer responsible for Portuguese, Spanish, and possibly even Italian and
French debt? And what about the other
debtor states? Chancellor Merkel knows
that her CDU party would be political toast if that happened, which could
explain why one senior German told me that she is actively thinking of
resigning this year.

Therefore, it is
Germany not Greece that has to get real.
Germany cannot maintain its ideological commitment to the Euro, expect
Greece to pay its debts, and avoid the consequence of its own ideological
commitment to the Euro/European Project.
Therefore, Berlin must face the hard truth, be it this year or next if
Germany is not willing to underwrite Greek debt Greece will leave the
Euro. It must also face the hard truth
that the logical consequence of Berlin’s own ideological position on Europe is
either a European super-state or a German Empire. At present the German people seem to want
neither which is why ironically the British view of the EU as an alliance of
states may well now prevail (just don’t tell the Brits).

What Berlin needs is a mechanism
to get it out of its own political/ideological fix that would enable Greece to
exit the Euro without destroying it. Certainly,
a Grexit if properly managed could help Athens restore some economic vitality. The new Drachma could be competitively devalued,
and if and when Greece is ready (and subject to their still being a Euro) Athens
could re-join. Such a mechanism would also
enable other member-states to move between Single Currency membership and Single
Market membership of the EU. Naturally,
there would need to be a large reserve established to assist such countries
transition to underwrite the currency and support banks etc. However, some of that could be generated by
transferring funds from the Common Agricultural Policy, and the various
regional development and structural funds.

Unless Germany gets its
thinking clear about the Euro, and Berlin properly re-establishes a
relationship between its ideological and political priorities, a Greek tragedy
could well become a European tragedy.

Wednesday, 18 February 2015

Little Britain? Twenty-First Century Strategy for a Middling European Power

People have been emailing me this past week asking when my new book on British national and defence strategic challenges will be published. My aim is to make it available on Amazon next week. After my losing battle with technology last week I am now going through the final proofs (again). Once done I will order a copy to check all is well and then re-launch it. Sorry for the delay but this is my first self-published book and I do not have the normal support I get from Oxford University Press or Routledge when I publish with them. Thank you for your patience which, immodestly, I think will be rewarded. What I say in the book needs saying not just for the British but all Europeans at this moment of geopolitics re-born.

Monday, 16 February 2015

Alphen, Netherlands. 16
February. Seventy years ago on the sunny
morning of 16 February, 1945 the beautiful German city of Dresden lay in
smouldering ruins. Known as the “Florence
on the Elbe” Dresden had been attacked over the preceding weekend of 13-15
February, 1945 by 722 Royal Air Force and 527 United States Army Air Force
heavy bombers which had flown 700 miles/1,100 kms or 10 hours to attack the
target and return to their many bases in Eastern England. During the attacks three thousand nine
hundred tons of high explosive and fire bombs (“cookies”) had been dropped by
the bombers on an area 1.25 miles/2.01 kms in length covering some 4 square
miles/6.5 square kms or 1600 acres.
Between 22,700 and 25,000 people were killed many of them incinerated by
the firestorm the raids whipped up.

Many reasons have been
given for this “maximum effort” attack on a German cultural icon when the
outcome of the war could no longer be in doubt.
The Bomber Command aircrews of 1, 3, 5, 6 and 8 Groups who carried out
the attack were told that Dresden was a rail hub with significant arms
manufacturers and that the city was full of German reserves waiting to attack the
advancing Red Army. That was only
partially true. Whilst Dresden did possess
significant industrial and military targets it was also full of refugees
fleeing the advancing Russians, together with Allied prisoners of war.

In spite of losing half
of its 125,000 aircrew during the long bombing campaigns that had attacked
Germany in growing strength since 1940 the RAF had been relentless in fulfilling
the determination of its leader Air Vice-Marshal Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris to
prove his belief that the RAF could win the war through ‘strategic bombing’. This fixation was the culmination of a battle
between the Services that went back to the 1920s when military thinkers such as
Trenchard, Douhet and Mitchell developed the idea of strategic bombing and
which was captured in the words of 1930s British Prime Minister Stanley
Baldwin, “The bomber will always get through”. In other words, Dresden was
attacked because the RAF could attack it and by 1945 almost all German cities
of note had been attacked. These attacks
included the 1942 attack on another cultural icon Lubeck, and the August 1942
Hamburg firestorm which shook the Nazi regime to its foundations.

“Dresden”, as it was soon
became known, also had its origins in the 1940 Luftwaffe attacks on Warsaw and
Rotterdam. However, revenge for the
German attacks on British cities, the London Blitz of 1940-41, but most notably
the so-called Coventry Blitz of 14 November, was clearly a motivation. Harris said, “The Germans entered this war
under the childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and
nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, Warsaw, London and half a hundred
other places they put their rather naïve theory into practice. They sowed the wind and now they are going to
reap the whirlwind”.

However, my own theory having
examined the attack in some depth is that far from supporting the Soviets the
attack was actually aimed at them.
Shortly before Dresden Churchill had attended the Yalta Conference which
took place from 4-11 February. Churchill
had been appalled by Britain’s humiliation at Yalta and Roosevelt’s acceptance
of Stalin’s proposal to carve up Europe.
In particular, Churchill had fought in vain to keep Poland an
independent state and failed and had little belief that Stalin would observe
the terms of the pact. Whilst I can find
only circumstantial evidence it would appear that the attack on Dresden was
meant as a warning to Stalin about the destruction the RAF could bring to bear
if the Red Army should fail to stop and kept marching West.

When Polish bomber
crews saw the terms of Yalta and that Poland was about to be handed over to the
Soviets they threatened to mutiny. However,
they were told by the Polish Government-in-Exile to complete the mission
against Dresden. As ever, these brave
men fulfilled their duty and those that survived had to wait a further 44 years
to see Poland free.

Too much modern history
attempts to impose contemporary values on past acts. Very few in Britain in 1945 would have
questioned the attack on Dresden, though a few did. After all, it was the total
end to a total war. These politicised
histories view past acts through the political correctness of the current age. Equally, Dresden was used by Nazi apologists to
imply a form of moral equivalency between the acts of the genocidal Nazi regime
and those of the Free World. Indeed, in
the immediate aftermath of the attack Berlin claimed some 200,000 civilians had
been killed by the British and Americans.

Therefore, the Dresden legacy
is important because it reminds all of us who believe in liberal democracy that
in an ideal world upholding the values for which one is fighting must also be
apparent in the way one fights. Equally,
Dresden also reminds us that there are some enemies who adhere to few values and
can only be impressed and deterred by power, strength and a ruthless
determination to win.

By 1945 the RAF had
perfected the art of area or carpet bombing. The Main Force (codename ”Plate Rack”) was
divided into two unopposed waves led by Pathfinders and a Master Bomber who ‘painted’
the main target (the Ostreigehege Stadium close to the old city) with 1000
pound red marker flares. Over the next three
hours two hundred and fifty-four Lancasters of 5 Group dropped firebombs on the
target, before the second wave attacked with high explosives to create a
firestorm. The RAF lost six aircraft,
three of which were ‘bombed’ by their other aircraft.

About Me

Julian Lindley-French is Senior Fellow of the Institute of Statecraft, Director of Europa Analytica & Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow, National Defense University, Washington DC. An internationally-recognised strategic analyst, advisor and author he was formerly Eisenhower Professor of Defence Strategy at the Netherlands Defence Academy,and Special Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of Leiden. He is a Fellow of Respublica in London, and a member of the Strategic Advisory Group of the Atlantic Council of the United States in Washington.
Latest books: The Oxford Handbook on War 2014 (Paperback) (2014; 709 pages). (Oxford: Oxford University Press) & "Little Britain? Twenty-First Strategy for a Middling European Power". (www.amazon.com)
The Friendly-Clinch Health Warning: The views contained herein are entirely my own and do not necessarily reflect those of any institution.